THE taxi advanced towards me in slow motion, its wheels entering a puddle of Lake Michigan proportions. Rug up in a cool woollen cap and turn up your collar James Dean-style while walking through Times Square. Get your skates on at the ice rink in Central Park. Drop your woollens off at the coat check at one of New York’s dozens of excellent museums.
Try the Pen-Top Bar at the Peninsula Hotel or the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Centre, and watch the flakes fall.
Claire Sutherland
Northern China in February
A TOUR is never just a tour in China. In Beijing, about $120 a night buys a suite, complete with drawing room, at a five-star hotel within walking distance of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We are the only people on our tour of the Great Wall - and the jade factory.
Then there’s the novelty factor. Snow and extreme cold can, themselves, be an attraction when you live in Melbourne.
In the city of Xian, the base for tourists visiting the Terracotta Warriors, the Grand New World hotel feels eerily deserted.
Kathleen Cuthbertson
Mojave Desert, California, in July
WINTER holidays are less appealing to a family of five from Invercargill in New Zealand. On arrival in Los Angeles, my uncle, to his eternal fiscally responsible credit, piled all 10 of us in his 1964 Pontiac stationwagon with faux wood panelling, white-wall tyres and roof rack - with no airconditioning.
Toilet stops, radio station selection and seat allocations took on special significance.
Some destinations do not have a low season as much as they have busy peak seasons. Some places have a low season for a good reason. Some popular attractions close for the low season and some transport services stop running. Some places and activities are hazardous at certain times of the year. When you visit in the low season, you trade some of the experiences you would have had in the high season for fewer crowds, cheaper hotels and different experiences.
• Look out for shoulder seasons. Many airlines, hotels and tours have a tiered pricing system that includes a shoulder season.
Whoever named the oasis had a perverse sense of humour. As we pulled out of the car park, the decision whether to lick or bite my ice cream was in my own hands, literally.
Dean King
Russia at Christmas
ONE of the best times to visit China, Mongolia and Russia is in the middle of winter. The appeal is having some of the world’s most amazing sites virtually to ourselves, including the Great Wall of China.
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